Blood and Guts in High School
(Janie 1978-1982)
Video Installation, 2004-2009, 50 min.
Shown as an installation at Participant Inc., NYC, Locust Projects, Miami and Upstream Gallery, Amsterdam. Screened at The Pacific Film Archives at the Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley. "Blood and Guts in High School" features actress Stephanie Vella in a series of video installations that re-imagine punk-feminist icon Kathy Acker’s book of the same title. The book received noteriety from 1978-1982 during the rise of Reagan republicanism and the emergence of punk rock. In Parnes’ interpretation, each video-chapter presents a typical scene in the life of Janie bracketed by US news events from the time period in which the book was written. These events saturate the character's daily experience, informing her adolescent, nihilistic worldview and her desire for rebellion. As the viewer looks back at pivotal historical events (Jonestown Massacre, Moral Majority, Three Mile Island etc.) connections are drawn in relation to our current political situation.
Shot with an hallucination Kubrickian eye, BLOOD AND GUTS brings a sleek cinematic aesthetic to the often ineptly-lensed genre of gallery video, and offers the form a new role: as Hollywood's unconscious, peeping into the nightmare from which we cannot awake.
–Ed Halter, Village Voice critic writing for Cinematexas
Still from “Blood and Guts in High School”
CREDITS
Written, Directed and Edited by Laura Parnes
Inspired by the Kathy Acker book of the same title.
THREE MILE ISLAND
Cast
Janie...Stephanie Vella
Salesgirl…Kathryn Miller
Boy…Keith Greenwall
Customer 1… Quentin Chiappetta
Customer 2…Laura Parnes
Customer 3…Michael Waugh
Crew
Camera…Jeffery Akers
Production Assistant…Zawu Napu
Production Assistant…John Brattin
Post Sound…Quentin Chiappetta
ISRAELI INVASION OF LEBANON
Cast
Janie...Stephanie Vella
Reverend…Robert Voris
Crew
Camera…Jeffery Akers
Camera B…Laura Parnes
Gaffer…John Laughlin
Post Sound…Quentin Chiappetta
DON’T DRINK THE KOOL-AID
Cast
Janie...Stephanie Vella
Nurse…Kelly Muzzi
Jonestown Victims...
Riley Arthur
Daniel Sean Adams
Sophia Batchelor
Jessa Brown
Sara Crystal
Keith Eyrich
Emma Givens
Alexis Friedman
Katie Jackson
Erin Mapes
Geoff Otis
Alex Toigo
Keira Zagaeski
Crew
Camera…Laura Parnes
Gaffer… Patrick Davidson
Make Up…Mary Jane Walsh
Production Assistant…Jessica Roessler
Production Assistant…Claudia Sparrow
Post Sound…Keith Strand
PARENTS STINK
Cast
Janie...Stephanie Vella
Johnny…Julian Sieser
Crew
Camera…Laura Parnes
Gaffer and Sound…Paul Kyle
Production Assistant…Patrick Davidson
Make Up…Robin King
Production Assistant…Jessica Roessler
Post Sound…Keith Strand
Characters from “Blood and Guts in High School”
Still from “Blood and Guts in High School” 2004-2009
Pictured: Stephanie Vella
Still from “Blood and Guts in High School” 2004-2009, C-Print
Pictured: Stephanie Vella and Jim Fletcher
Filmed on bare-bones sets put together in gallery spaces, the video is a model of how to bring off an ambitions project with scant resources, and also of how to respect source material while transforming it. And where Acker's novels have a quick-hit crash-and-burn intensity, Ms. Parnes's video floats like a shark, forever hovering, but always watching and moving.
-Holland Cotter, "New York Times"
GOD GUTS GUNS
Cast
Janie...Stephanie Vella
Teacher… Cristian Panaite
Five Young Toughs...
Daniel Sean Adams
Danny Herter
Jamie Marshall-Lively
Tadd A. Morgan
Malcolm Young
Crew
Camera…Laura Parnes
Gaffer… Patrick Davidson
Hair… Eva Schmidt & Charlotte Sullivan
Production Assistant… Suzanne Brundage
Production Assistant…Krissy Nordella
Production Assistant…Virgil Polit
Production Assistant…Claudia Sparrow
Post Sound…Keith Strand
INVASION OF AFGHANISTAN
Cast
Janie...Stephanie Vella
Policeman…Jim Fletcher
Crew
Camera… Jeffery Akers
Camera B… Laura Parnes
Production Assistant…Kel O’Neill
Production Assistant…Eric Heist
Post Sound…Quentin Chiappetta
PORTRAIT PHOTOS BY
Bridget Webber
SPECIAL THANKS TO
Rebecca Chamberlain, David Dixon, Lia Gangitano,
Eric Heist,Barry Hylton, Kirk Jackson, Ruth Kahn, Chris Kraus, Lovett/Codagnone, Momenta Art, Sue Rees, Frank Schwere, Guy Richards Smit, Schroeder Romero, Brad Verter, Matais Viegener, Michael Waugh, Bridget Webber, Bennington College, Participant Inc., and Media Noise
SUPPORTED BY
The Outpost’s Cuts and Burns Residency Program, Bklyn, NY, The Experimental Television Center’s Finishing Funds Program that is supported by the EM & F Program at NYSCA
THIS PROJECT IS DEDICATED TO
Kathy Acker and Kelly Muzzi